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Statistically, most of that time was related to the Lord of the Rings movies, so now that both trilogies are complete,I'd expect the time spent thinking about new Zealand to trend downwards.

http://worldmapswithout.nz/

Maybe New Zealand is one of those fake places they put on maps to catch copyright infringers.

@Rolepgeek
Theodicy isn’t my main point, though I did mention it.

Okay, yeah, that was poorly explained. My point is that prayer is not a magical helpline. If anything it's more for the psychological benefits of getting things off your chest, so to speak.
If you're praying in God's name, you're basically praying for what God wants to coincide with what you want, which isn't always going to happen. God may want the cancer patient to die, for whatever reason. Which seems like a cop-out seeing as  I just said about Jesus saying your prayers would be answered. Strictly speaking a Christian is praying for God's plan to proceed, because God is good because God is good, so his plan is good as well, and we're praying for good things to happen, so we're praying for his plan to happen. The logic could win a gymnastics competition, but whatever.

It's kinda janky and awkward to explain of three hours of sleep. A fair bit is God of the Gaps stuff like Rolan said.

E: Rolep's point as well is part of it.

...

Quote from: Fenrir on December 31, 2015, 04:45:53 pm

You can’t be fucking serious.

I choose Option 5: This world sucks and you don't always get what you want.

I think I got whiplash from that 180.

Look, if you want to claim that you meant the complete opposite thing from what you said in your last post because you worded it badly, I’ll accept that and move on. I won’t believe you, but I’ll pretend like I do because debates like this don’t work if you don’t assume good faith like that.

Okay, yeah, that was poorly explained. My point is that prayer is not a magical helpline. If anything it's more for the psychological benefits of getting things off your chest, so to speak.
If you're praying in God's name, you're basically praying for what God wants to coincide with what you want, which isn't always going to happen. God may want the cancer patient to die, for whatever reason. Which seems like a cop-out seeing as  I just said about Jesus saying your prayers would be answered. Strictly speaking a Christian is praying for God's plan to proceed, because God is good because God is good, so his plan is good as well, and we're praying for good things to happen, so we're praying for his plan to happen. The logic could win a gymnastics competition, but whatever.

Okay, so prayer only works if you’re praying for something god was going to do anyway. If you get the same outcome by praying as you do by not praying, prayer does fuck all. Which is fine, I wouldn’t expect god to take input from us anyway, but don’t go telling us that god gives us everything we ask for if we’re being sincere and not lazy.

I choose Option 5: This world sucks and you don't always get what you want.

You don’t get to dodge like that. You told us that Jesus said we get what we want as long as we aren’t being lazy. Which means that you either get 3 or 4; either Jesus outright lied or he never actually said that our prayers would be answered (I think “he was being metaphorical,” is the go-to explanation for that, which isn’t always implausible I guess).

I think OW is saying you need to ask in good faith, but also take the necessary steps.  The cancer won't miraculously disappear, a doctor needs to cut it out and the patient has to undergo chemo.  But if you do that, and pray, then God will operate in the gaps to make things succeed.

I mean, it's standard God of the Gaps I think.  Like my fairies, they only exist where we can't yet observe.

So 1, then, which means it’s testable, and then you’ve got to explain away every death from terminal illness from before human beings even had medical interventions, and then you’ve got to explain how this doesn’t make god a complete douchbag for killing somebody because someone else didn’t really mean it when they asked for the victim to be spared, and then you’ve got to explain how you can call surgery and chemotherapy “necessary steps” when god can just cure people and he already knows whether they’re going to work but puts the victim through it anyway.

Well, basically. God said to Israel that he would give them the promised land, but they still had to go out and fight the dudes who were there first. Abraham (and lots of other guys) were promised children, but they (presumably) still needed to go at it with their wives for that to happen. Jesus promised us that anything we pray for in good faith will be given to us, so it stands to reason that we still need to put the effort in, even if God has a hand in the results.

Long story short, the Bible never advocates laziness.

You can’t be fucking serious.

So let’s assume that people regularly pray for loved ones with terminal illnesses. That’s not hard to believe. Cancer’s a classic, so let’s go with that one. With your assumption, if someone prays for a cancer victim and the victim dies anyway, the supplicant was being lazy and didn’t really give an effort. Now, you’ve got to assume one of a few things.

1. The vast majority of people don’t die from cancer if they receive both treatment and prayer.
2. Most people who pray for cancer victims don’t really try to save a loved one from cancer.
3. Jesus was full of shit.
4. Jesus never actually said that.

Now, 1 is testable. I really doubt you’re going to pick 1, since we might be able to look that one up. If you believe 2, you’re not only wrong, you’re an asshole. Sure, maybe you could explain away a few cases as laziness on the part of the supplicant (and this fact was somehow enough to condemn the cancer victim to suffering and death for some reason), but 1 would still have to be true. 3 is the one I’d go with personally. I’m not sure about 4, since I honestly never did read the bible.

(There are a number of other problems with this, but I don’t want to complicate things too much.)

Well, yeah. People doing shitty things in the name of religion is bad.

But I get annoyed when people bring up people doing shitty things in the name of religion and say it's the religion's fault, but when people do good things in the name of religion, it's because they were good people anyway. And vice versa, sometimes, for people supporting religion. Some people will do shitty things regardless of religion, some people will do shitty things because of it. Some people will do good things regardless of religion, some people will do good things because of it.

It’s kind of like the argument in defense of guns. Okay, yeah, some people will murder each other anyway, but having a pistol or divine mandate make it much easier. Of course, the analogy breaks down a bit after that since I don’t think guns make charitable acts easier in the majority of cases, but you still can’t say religion doesn’t motivate violence. It does. A lot. I’m not going to say that it motivates violence more than it motivates charity, but it does motivate violence and it needs to be blamed for that when it’s at fault.

Eh, that’s probably true in a lot of areas, but much of religious belief doesn’t seem to intersect too much with daily life and scientific progress. Yeah, you’ve got America’s religious that fuck up a few facets of progress, so I’m not going to say you’re definitely wrong, but it’s not obvious to me that religion is a net impediment to progress. It seems to be fairly adaptable and willing to retcon (which is part of what makes it so pernicious).

That’s a good point that I should have noticed. Thank you for pointing that out.

Quote from: Antsan on December 29, 2015, 07:17:01 am

"It's only a joke, don't take them seriously!"
Yeah, why should I take them less seriously than you do? Why do you feel the need to affirm that telling jokes is so important that they're beyond criticism?
Frikkin' pc-haters. Philosophically undereducated, self-absorbed pricks. Why don't they understand that society doesn't revolve around them and their needs?

Yeah man, fuck free speech.

This is an excellent example of an annoying Internet habit: people not understanding what the concept of “free speech” is.

“Free speech” doesn’t mean “speech you can’t cricitize”, and it doesn’t mean “private parties can’t restrict access to private resources based on the content of speech”.